


New Kid In Town

by grimtart



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Asshole Cronus, High School, Humanstuck, M/M, Please Don't Hate Me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2018-02-22 20:53:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2521409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimtart/pseuds/grimtart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Humanstuck AU where Kankri meets Cronus in high school. There isn't much of a spark at first, but they start to like each other fairly quickly, becoming best friends, and then lovers of sorts. Complications arise when Cronus moves away, and Kankri is left to send him letters and more letters in order to keep in touch. This isn't as easy as he would have thought. Sappy and filled with cute, fluffy touches, this is a fanfiction that really brings out the essence in a relationship, no matter how far away two people are from each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chief.

 

Kankri Vantas was a soc. But that didn’t mean the guy was a douchebag, or that he was head of the football team, or just a plain dickwad, because, in fact, he was none of those things. He was just richer than rich, because his father was a religious maniac with a hell of a lot of cash on his person, for whatever reason. So basically, all he was was a rich kid with a sharp wit.

But, honestly, he wasn’t stuck up and, surprisingly, he was generally unpopular. However, this was due to him being a talkative, practically unbearable teenager (because of his _constant talking_ ) who practically wasn’t a teenager because he never got to do rebellious teenage stuff. Sort of because his dad was, again, overly religious, and he never really got the chance to go out in the first place because it wasn’t like his younger brother was going to watch himself. In any case, he needed more of a “social life,” even he would admit that.

Mostly, Kankri had no issue with being unpopular and out of the crowd, and he had no problem with not partying or drinking or smoking until his lungs were literally blacker than black with tar. Why would all of that stuff matter, anyway? Especially the popular thing. Sure, the guy had _friends_ , all of which were just as filthy rich as him, but he wasn’t craving to be the hotshot with the entire school drooling over him. He would rather leave that to somebody else, it wasn’t really his thing. He was more of the kid that was too smart for his junior year of high school but had too much money to be considered an actual nerd. Gotta love stereotypes, right?

But even if that weren’t it, and he _was_ the most popular guy in school, he would just talk everybody away, anyway.

Good times.

The brunet slung his bag over his right shoulder as he merely glanced at his watch, knowing that he had to get walking to school eventually, but he was still keeping an eye on Karkat for the moment being, the hand that wasn’t hanging onto one strap of his backpack stuffed into the pocket of his black jeans. The kid was getting big, almost big enough for school, but not quite yet. It wouldn’t be long before he was charming the halls, that was for sure, and Kankri wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or concerned. Karkat was still so headstrong, even as a kid of five years old, but maybe that was okay. He would even out when he grew older, Kankri was sure.

After spending far too long with an eye on Karkat, Kankri was redeemed only by the call from the next room, from their father, telling him that it was okay to leave. Or...at least that’s what Kankri hoped was said, because he was kind of tuned out and staring at the time before he snapped back to reality with a small sigh, leaning down to get eye level with Karkat. He ruffled his hair just a little, because he knew that it made him all red and pouty, and chuckled, moving to pat him on the shoulder before standing straight again. “I’ll be home later, Karkat.”

He didn’t really hear the mumbling that his younger brother made before he left the house, starting for school immediately.

 

* * *

 

School wasn’t exactly a far walk, but in order to get there, Kankri had to walk all the way across town. He had a car, of course he did, but he just...liked walking. He liked this town, for the most part, at least for the scenery; it was beautiful in some parts, not so much in others, but that’s what made it so interesting.

Anyway, walking to school meant that Kankri dragged himself down the sort-of-long alley across the street from his house, and then he would walk down the left sidewalk of main street, where he, of course, always stopped on the sidewalk where he would always meet Porrim. Once she arrived today, he started speaking with her, pulling her along to school, like every other morning. She had been a friend for a long time, if you were to call her that. She acted as quite the mother figure sometimes, even though they were the same age, and that was one thing that helped Kankri moan and groan about her when he needed to do so. She was persistent, after all. But, honestly, this was due to his obsessive need to tell everyone how right he is. He was quite the rude one if he wanted to be.

The taller, rather beautiful young woman walked slowly alongside Kankri, crossing her tattooed arms and running her hands up and down them enough to keep her warm. She was silent right now, glancing down at him every so often and shaking her head a total of twice. It was only the second time that Kankri caught her head shaking, and his brow knitted. He gave her a look and said slowly, “Is something wrong, Porrim?”

Porrim laughed lightly, shaking her head again, her green eyes flickering quickly to the red sweater he had pushed over his torso and then back at the sidewalk in front of her. “Nothing is _wrong_ ,” she responded gently, her smile a little wider, “it’s only that I know you have better clothes than that sweater and you still like to wear it.”

“You gave it to me. I couldn’t simply stop wearing it, that would be rude," Kankri stated, "never mind the fact that a) it _has_ become part of my image now; and b) I actually, mind you, enjoy wearing this sweater. It’s comfortable and loose. Really, I don’t have to feel like I’m unfairly exposed wearing it, unlike most of the clothes that I have.” The last part was a mumble. Large hazel eyes glistening as he looked down at his sweater, Kankri couldn’t help but chuckle softly. He and Porrim kept walking.

Upon arriving at school, there were layers of chaos:

1) Across the street, mild business and kids rushing past on the bike trail;

2) the sidewalk leading up to the school, where idiots pushed in between your group and ran off with a trail of people behind them;

3) the actual schoolyard, where absolute chaos took place every single day, no matter what, unless it was a weekend or a holiday vacation or something.

After Porrim and Kankri had separated with a friendly wave, since they entered at different sides of the rather large high school building, Kankri walked alone, both hands clutching to the handle of his bag that was on his shoulder and his small, barely over five foot frame almost falling over every time somebody pushed past him like an idiot. That was a repetitive occurrence, however, being in a high school with a bunch of other teenagers and all, so he tried to stay to the side as much as he possibly could.

There was everyone at that school, as there was everywhere else, right? This was a cliche place. There were socs, the bigshot ones over by the big oak tree in the schoolyard like they usually are, laughing and watching everybody else walk by, looking like they were judging everybody else (and they _were_ , most definitely, judging everybody else), and then there were greasers, scattered around, causing a little havoc with each other and smoking their first pack for the day already. By god, Kankri cringed a little bit at that; it was only eight o’ clock AM, wasn’t it a little...well, early for cigarettes? It was at least in Kankri’s mind, not really all that familiar with morning cigarettes and all.

But this isn’t The Outsiders, okay? There are more than greasers and socs. There are...you could probably name them, actually: the kids that didn’t care about school, the kids who do nothing but talk about social media sites and somehow gorgeous middle aged men, the kids who had to redo their senior year, the kids that do nothing except for gossip about other kids...debate team, band geeks, math freaks, what have you. There was a little of everyone there.

Kankri was trying to ignore the beckons of his couple of friends, who were impatiently cross-armed in the caress of wind from under the school’s front door marquee. He didn’t really feel like talking at that moment in particular, he just wanted to get to his homeroom and finish the homework that he hadn’t finished from the day before. It wasn’t like him to miss homework, not really.

So he rounded to one of the side doors to slyly avoid his friends, entering from there and starting down the hall. Same old, same old. Kankri switched his bag to his other shoulder finally, and he approached his locker, about to open it up before another taller boy brushes past him, bumping his shoulder with his on accident. It made Kankri turn to him, his lips tightening in a line and his lungs filling with air so that he could let out a few choice words if the action was on purpose.

Though, the boy that bumped into him simply turned around, walking backwards to look at Kankri, slowing down enough to grin and say, “Sorry ‘bout that, chief.” He skimmed his eyes up and down the smaller teen and rolled the unlit cigarette between his lips a little bit, raking his black hair back with the tips of his fingers and turning back around. He started walking a little slower than he was, biting down on the end of the cigarette just slightly and shoving his hands into his front pockets, his thumbs dangling out and over the fabric.

Recollecting himself, Kankri only watched him walk away for a second, turning back to his locker and getting his books. That was quite a distraction, he probably lost a few moments of work time. No matter. He, mumbling a collection of words under his breath, simply finished what he was doing and started for his homeroom.

 

* * *

 

The morning was long. It was long, and hot, and boring, and Kankri almost felt like passing out in the middle of class. But he didn’t, because that’s not what honor roll students do. They pay attention and stay awake, and they don’t care about the hotness of the room. His right hand was aching a bit from the pressure where his pen was by the time that lunch was around the corner, although when the bell _finally_ rang for lunch, the ache seemed to disappear. So, with a sigh of relief, he put his stuff together as fast as he could and hurried outside. There were kids already out there, since most of them ate out in the grass or at the outside tables because it was stuffy in the school, so the teen shrugged to himself, plopping down in a mainly empty area of grass.

As he matted his bangs back and out of his face, he leaned back on one hand and stared at the door that led to the lunchroom, watching people spill out of it like animals and come outside, too. It was always painfully awkward for him to sit there during lunch, because Porrim and the rest of his friends had different lunch periods as him. He had nobody to talk to, and if it weren’t for books, he wouldn’t survive the twenty minutes.

He reached into his bag and pulled out a copy of the untitled book he liked to read over and over again (literally, he couldn’t figure out the title and there wasn’t one on the cover or inside of the book, either--all he knew was that it was something like Romeo and Juliet), tilting backwards and landing on his back, opening the book where he had left off and holding it up a little so that his eyes could skim over the black words. He could never resist a tale of love and tragedy, which is basically why he read this untitled novel so many times. On several occasions, he had thought about giving the book a title himself, but he figured that that was stupid. The author must not have wanted the thing to have a title, and so be it; it was their work, and Kankri respected that.

In the middle of page seventy two, on the line of “‘Don’t leave,’ said the mistress,” Kankri nearly dropped his book on his face when he heard a deep (or, at least, deep to _him_ ) voice above him, jumping a little in fright.

“Whatcha doin’ down there, cat?”

Kankri sat up with a jolt, looking up at the boy that he had bumped into in the hall before and sighing at him. He, in an obviously impatient manner, closed his book and set it off to his side, and he swallowed his leftover surprise down a bit. He was enjoying time with his book...however, he decided to give the other teen a chance.


	2. Starry Eyes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cronus and Kankri finally meet. Kankri expects to dislike Cronus, although he soon realizes that he isn't as bad as he seems on the outside.

Clearing his throat, Kankri crossed his legs, folding his hands politely in his lap and keeping his eyes on the other. He was tall, alright, and as he sat down in front of  Kankri he felt the need to motion at the difference of their heights, which made Kankri’s eyes roll.

“You heard of me? The name’s Ampora. Cronus Ampora.” Grinning, Cronus Ampora seemed to be trying to show off, although he didn’t have to do much showing off to make Kankri impressed (even though Kankri refused Cronus the amusement of showing how impressed he was).

His eyes shone in the sunlight, dark blue irises almost purple if they were in the right light. About now, they looked like the night sky, each freckle of light in his eyes acting as stars. If there weren’t galaxies in that boy’s eyes, there were skies. His hands, with thin, fragile fingers, smoothed over his white cutoff shirt, tucking it in more as clouds relaxed in front of the sun now, blocking the sunlight and making Cronus Ampora’s eyes lose a few stars; they were still beautiful eyes, nonetheless.

Kankri found himself staring.

He broke himself out of the staring, though, and instead started to note their differences in appearance. Cronus was very tan, whereas Kankri was so pale that you could see the freckles spotted all over him from across the schoolyard. And Kankri was shorter, much shorter; Cronus had to be at least six feet tall. Kankri’s height was, at the most, five feet and three inches. His curly, puffy brown hair was unruly, at least compared to the way that Cronus’s was slicked back with gel (it was probably combed back about twice per hour). They were practically polar opposites on the outside, the taller with a grin and the shorter with a straight face and a slightly indented brow.

After a brief moment of silence, Kankri cleared his throat, saying carefully, “Mm, right.” He gnawed at his lip, remembering that he should introduce himself as well before anything else. So, he nodded very slightly and gave the other a very, very quick smile, returning to the stoic expression before the smile could even be processed. He, just as quickly, lifted his hand, holding it out to Cronus to give him a chance to shake it. “And I’m sure you’ve heard of me. Student council president, debate team captain, Kankri--”

“Vantas,” Cronus finished for him, grinning even more at the other’s confused expression. The black haired Aquarius chuckled and ran a hand through his hair, leaning back on the other hand. “Yeah, I know who you are, _Vantas_. You’re the douchebag ‘round here, the one that makes school even more boring with your super important student council things.” Pausing, Cronus finally noticed that Kankri’s hand was out. Instead of shaking it, he chuckled again and hit it with his own hand to give him a high-five. It was hilarious, at least to him.

However, Kankri’s face had gone red, and he balled his hands into fists, sitting up more to _try_ and be taller than Cronus. That was a (drastically) failed attempt, he noticed, though he still stayed in that position, keeping his voice at a normal level as he spoke. “I’m not the only one who makes the decisions, _I_ simply agree to follow through with them! And I think it’s rude of you to speak that way to me, you do know that I can help pass school rules to ban those cigarettes? Those are hazardous and can lead to disease! Also, did you know that secondhand smoke is _more_ dangerous than--”

“Dude, whoa, can it.” Cronus seemed amused, but also annoyed. He bit down on the butt of his unlit cigarette very lightly, and then took it out of his mouth, shrugging and putting it back after Kankri got a good look at how it wasn’t lit. “Go ahead and do that, ban them, I don’t even light these things. But they’re cool.”

“They’re _not_.”

“Oh, come on.”

The hazel of Kankri’s eyes seemed to dim. His expectations hadn’t been met yet for this Cronus character, even though they were low in the first place. However...he wasn’t _completely_ unbearable. He just needed a little fixing up, is all. A little less gel in his hair, a little more cloth on his arms. Maybe a varsity jacket, but let’s not go too far. At least not yet.

Cronus shifted a little bit, clearing his throat and sitting up more as Kankri finally relaxed his position once more. Now that they both thought one another was insufferable, there was nothing to do or say, and Cronus found that incredibly boring.

Eventually, though, he caught Kankri’s annoyed stare at the cigarette, and rolled his eyes before taking it out of his mouth. “What, this?” he questioned, raising his eyebrows and chuckling under his breath. After the short nod that Kankri gave him, Cronus looked at the cigarette and hesitated before reaching into his pocket, pulling out an empty cigarette carton. After opening it and putting the cigarette in his hand into the container, he closed it once more and returned it to his pocket. “Happy now, Vantas?”

“Very,” Kankri responded, a string of agitation in his voice, though it was uncalled for. There was nothing to be agitated about; Cronus wasn’t saying much, and he had even put the cigarette away. Nonetheless, Kankri could feel his stomach turn a bit. There was something about this boy...he wasn’t sure what it was, but it was _something_.

Cronus opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted by the school’s bell. His mouth closed slowly as he watched Kankri tuck his book neatly into his bag, hoisting it over his shoulder as he stood up.

“Right,” Kankri said, just like he had before. He watched Cronus stand up, and then nodded, sliding both arms into his bag’s straps and then shoving his hands into his pockets. If he didn’t hurry, he would be late for class. He started walking backwards slowly, taking a hand out of his pocket to give a small wave to Cronus, turning to walk forwards towards the school doors.

Cronus watched profoundly. He waved, quite sarcastically, back to Kankri and waited until the smaller teen was through the doors before walking through them himself. 


End file.
